The next step for me was to finally mount the mainboard. You can do this quite easily with the side panel opened down onto the table, or you can remove the side panel completely and work away from the case totally unobstructed. Once again - a brilliant design feature because 1/2 of the rear portion of the case that houses the slots is an integrated part of the side panel that holds the mainboard. Another thing to mention here is the hidden parts case that is below the hard drive cage at the bottom of the case. I thought this was a very nice feature. You push down on the protruding tab and pull out the case that contains your mounting screws, other hardware, and the hard drive rails. The mainboard mounts onto metal spring type clips that you squeeze into place on the mounting plate. I personally prefer a brass screw-in type mainboard mount, and expected that style in a case of this obvious quality, but that is just a personal preference. One thing I did find is that I was provided with 7 mounting clips and my mainboard requires 10. Of course I have lots of the screw-in brass type mounts, but none of these unique squeeze clips so my board is hovering in mid air on the right side. Not a big deal because I realize the newer mainboards are a bit smaller than my board, but it would have been nice to have those extra 3 clips. Next, with the help of this wonderful design, I was able to mount my video card, sound card, and modem and screw them into place. I then slipped the side cover into place and left it laying flat on the table. With the case wide open on both sides I had lots of room to now connect all of the internal wiring. The wires from the Power On and Reset buttons as well as the Power and Hard Drive LED's were long enough to connect to the mainboard with the sides down. My Power Supply wires, ribbon cables, and SATA cables could also be connected to the mainboard with the case in the open position. What a nice change of pace this case offers instead of working in the often tight confines of a regular case. Superb design - did I say that already? Being as I have 4 internal hard drives I opted to use the removable 3.5" bay at the bottom of the case which is cooled by the front 120mm fan. Because of this I removed the 80mm fan which cools the middle 3.5" bay before I closed the right side of the case. I mounted this fan in the left side brace which has room for an 80mm fan to provide fresh air onto my video card area of the mainboard.

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The last step was to mount my hard drives. I removed the hard drive cage at the bottom of the case by removing the single thumb screw that locks it in place. The cage then pivots 90 degrees to make it easier to mount the drives, or the cage can be removed completely, which I opted for. The drives are mounted in the cage with the use of rails that push into each side of the hard drive and then clips into place when the drive is slid into the cage. Again, the tolerance of the fit was snug which I much prefer. You don't want a loose fit of your hard drives which could promote vibration or damage to your drives. The quality and the attention to everything having a perfect fit is definitely something that stands out with this case. I then put the hard drive cage back into place, installed the thumb screw to secure it, and connected the power, IDE, and SATA cables.

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At this point I connected the power wires for the side and rear mounted 80mm fans and discovered another tiny problem, the wires were a bit too short to run them the way that I wanted to. Again, this is a personal issue with the way I wanted to route the wires because I didn't want the rear fan wires to go through the middle of the case, and I couldn't open the side brace with those fan wires being so short. A minor inconvenience which is outweighed by the many other great features which I enjoyed with the Spire - Pininfarina case.

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And now at the end I will voice basically my ONLY problem with this, and almost every other case that has a door on the front to cover the drive bays. Considering that approximately 85% to 92% of the population is right handed, can someone please explain to me why almost every computer drive bay door is left hand hinged? Also, most computer desks have the computer area provided on the right side portion of the desk, and most right handed people have their computer on their right side so it is easier to install Cd's and DVD's into the drive using your right hand. Now, add to this a door that is hinged on the left side thereby blocking access to your drive! It just doesn't make sense to me why computer case manufacturers can't design a door that can be mounted to open left or right - my refrigerator does.
This Spire Pininfarina case uses a metal pin that screws into a flat tab on the bottom of the door and then slides into a hole at the bottom of the case opening, the top of the door is a molder plastic tab and hook design. It's the upper pivot that makes this door difficult to modify. If the upper hinge were also 2 flat tabs with a screw-in pin then this design could be incorporated into each side of the door. The pins could then be screwed into the left or right side tabs on the door and would mate with the bottom hole and matching upper tab with a hole. The un-used upper tabs on the other side should just slide past each other and cause no obstruction. Easy fix I think. But for me, I find myself just wanting to remove the door most of the time to get it out of my way........ and luckily the case doesn't look all that bad without the door mounted, it just kills some of that beautiful flowing design and elegance, so I leave it on.

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